Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (13 page)

The treaty Nez Perce, now led by a man named James Reuben, were quick to support this idea. Almost more than any white person, these Christian Nez Perce, with their historic commitment to the spiritual significance of life, had taken their Presbyterianism to an extreme of piety. To them, Smolholla was the purveyor of dangerous falsehoods. His pernicious brand of belief was harmful to their people and threatened to ensnare those among them who were not strong in their Christian faith. In their minds, Smolholla had to be stopped.

It mattered little that Joseph was not a direct follower of Smolholla— that the two men were simply following different tributaries of the traditional seven-drum belief in the living, life-giving power of the land and all its creations. To those among both the whites and the Nez Perce who followed the Christian path, the Wallowa chief and the hunchbacked prophet from Palouse country seemed as one, and all knew that men under the spell of a messianic spiritualism were as dangerous as men under the influence of alcohol.

So during the winter of 1876, while Joseph and his people camped in their traditional wintering grounds down in the Imnaha Valley near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers, plans were being made to occupy the Wallowa with troops and to demand that the chief and his band move onto the reservation at Lapwai by April 1. There they could be contained, controlled, and kept from fomenting dissatisfaction. With them out of the way, the rich Wallowa could finally be opened to white settlement without fear of violence or Indian resistance.

In an attempt to forestall violence, the treaty Nez Perce sent a delegation of four men down to the Imnaha to meet with Joseph and ask him to come onto the reservation peaceably. Joseph once again refused. Why was it, he asked them, that white men could not understand that the land had been given to his people by the Creator and that he had sworn a sacred trust to his father never to abandon it, no matter what was offered or threatened? His body was of that land. He could not leave it, he could not sell it, he could not betray his father's dying words.

The four men went back to the government officials with the news, and the stage was set for a potentially ugly confrontation. But General Howard still wanted to avoid bloodshed. He had no interest in harming Joseph or his people. He still believed that more reasonable minds could prevail, and in his heart he knew that Joseph's argument had both moral and legal merit. But orders were orders, and he was perilously close to having to remove Joseph from the Wallowa by force.

Over the next few months he tried talking with the other nontreaty bands of the tribes in the Plateau. If he could convince some of them to accept reservation life, there would be pressure on the others to acquiesce, and the danger of concerted opposition would be minimized. His goal was to get them all to move onto existing reservations without bloodshed. The time was long past for talk of compensation or sharing of the land.

Still, Joseph towered head and shoulders above all the other leaders in Howard's thinking. His eloquence was unparalleled among the chiefs, his quality of mind beyond reproach. He also exuded a forthrightness and clarity that drew others to him. In Howard's mind, he was an oak tree among reeds and willows.

In addition, it was his land that had become the center of the controversy. The other nontreaty Nez Perce lived farther to the east in less contested areas and amounted to little in terms of opposition. White Bird, Looking Glass, Toohoolhoolzote, and the others were secondary concerns. Likewise, the various Cayuse and Palouse chiefs were once again more nuisances than adversaries. Their lands were not as highly sought, their opposition not so closely followed in Portland and Washington, D.C., their personal characters not so dynamic. It was Joseph who embodied the problem, and it was in dealing with Joseph that any solution must ultimately lie.

Howard understood this, but he consistently undermined his own efforts by making error after error in protocol in dealing with the Nez Perce. In one instance, he sent an underling to represent him at a meeting he had promised to attend, thus insulting Ollokot, who had gone as the chief representative of the Wallowa Nez Perce and had no interest in dealing with what he called one of General Howard's “boys.” In other instances, he spoke abruptly, denying the Nez Perce their normal manner of discourse in discussing issues of importance. But in no case did he so underestimate and miscalculate as in the meeting on the grounds of Fort Lapwai in May 1877, the meeting that came to be known as the council where General Howard “showed the rifle.”

F
ORT
L
APWAI WAS NOT
a fort in the sense of a barricaded enclave. It consisted of a few whitewashed buildings rimming a parade area, with barracks for men, stables for horses, and the usual storage buildings, officers' quarters, and rooms to serve as jail cells, laundries, and medical quarters. It sat lonely and isolated along the side of a creek amid the barren, bald hills that had so depressed the Reverend Spalding upon first arriving in the country.

The soldiers who manned the fort were mostly ill-trained remnants of the post–Civil War army—immigrants, down-and-outers, and young boys with no families and no prospects who had joined the military as a way to advance in a world that offered them few opportunities. Many spoke little or no English. Those who had any skills at all were more likely to be blacksmiths, carpenters, and clerks than men with experience at soldiering.

There were a few seasoned officers but little in the way of equipment. The soldiers had few decent weapons and had received almost no training. Howard had not wished to waste his limited budget on bullets for target practice, so the troops were poor shots as well as poor riders.

It was this crude collection of 120 men that was charged with the responsibility of keeping order in the broad Columbia Plateau, and these men now found themselves responsible for keeping the Indians in line during the council that Howard had called in order to issue a final ultimatum to the nontreaty Nez Perce.

Howard had invited all the leaders—Joseph, White Bird, Looking Glass, Toohoolhoolzote, and any others who chose to come. He was no longer in a mood to compromise or discuss. All that interested him was informing the recalcitrant Nez Perce, in no uncertain terms, that they would have to give up all claims to their traditional lands and move onto the reservation at Lapwai with the treaty Nez Perce. He would listen to their usual rhetoric about the land as their mother and the misunderstandings about the treaties, but he would give no quarter. This was the final council; this was the concluding act to the long, agonizing battle that had resulted from the misunderstandings and missteps by the government and the Indians alike. At its conclusion the matter would be resolved and the Indians would be given a timetable for completing the move. The only issue was how best to accomplish this without violence from the more belligerent elements among the nontreaty factions.

The meeting took place under a pall of tension. Joseph and his people arrived first, and Howard tried to begin the treaty proceedings immediately. In his mind, instructions for all the bands were going to be the same: give up your resistance and come onto the reservation, or be moved there by force. It mattered little if he told this to them as a group or to each band individually.

But Joseph refused to listen until the other bands arrived. They needed more time to traverse the snow-covered mountain trails, he said, and he would not speak without their being present. Reluctantly, Howard agreed. But the mood was anything but cordial. Even the usually gregarious and good-natured Ollokot grumbled that he was sick of being treated like a dog and wondered aloud why there should not be one law for all men rather than rules for Indians and special treatment for white men.

When the other tribes arrived, it became obvious that this meeting was going to require delicacy. Howard and his small outpost of soldiers found themselves watching nervously as hundreds of warriors, arrayed in full battle dress with their faces painted a blood red vermilion, paraded slowly around the perimeter of the small, unprotected Fort Lapwai garrison.

The Nez Perce, however, were not in a violent mood. They merely had no further patience for equivocation and misrepresentation. They had met previously and decided that Toohoolhoolzote should serve as their spokesman. He was a man of powerful medicine and a committed follower of Smolholla's teachings about the living spirit of the earth. It was he who would be charged with the challenge of finally getting through to this hardheaded general regarding the issue of the land. He would speak as long as was necessary to get across the people's feelings about the sacredness of the earth.

The council began poorly, with Howard adamantly stating that there was only one possible outcome—the nontreaty bands were going to have to move onto the reservation. This struck the Nez Perce as not only disingenuous but also insulting. They had been called to council, not to a lecture. They had not traveled on difficult, slippery trails and across treacherous, snow-swollen spring rivers only to be treated like children.

Chief White Bird sat silently, his mouth obscured by an eagle wing that he held in front of his face. The other nontreaty chiefs stood by impassively, listening to the white agent Monteith and the one-armed General Howard talk as if the Indians had no rights and no point of view. The treaty Nez Perce, who were also in attendance, kept a careful eye on their nontreaty brothers, making sure to note any potentially dangerous comments or actions that they could pass along to the government officials at the end of the day's proceedings.

On the second day, Toohoolhoolzote took the floor to fulfill his role as spokesman for the people's position. He was a gruff man with a guttural voice—“a cross-grained growler” in Howard's estimation—but he was an eloquent spokesman for the people's love of the land. He was also a man whose hatred for the white intrusion was impossible to miss.

He chided Howard for treating them like children and spoke derisively about this “Washington” to which Howard and Monteith constantly referred. “Is he a chief or a common man, a house or a place?” he asked. “Leave Mr. Washington—that is, if he is a man—alone. He has no sense. He does not know anything about our country.”

He derided Howard's constant threats of military force and challenged him to speak man to man. Then he began, in his most fervent oratory, to explain to Howard that the earth was alive, that the earth was their mother, that you do not sell your mother, you do not negotiate about your mother, you do not dishonor your mother by cutting her hair or digging in her flesh, and you do not feel compelled to change her to suit your own selfish and shortsighted needs. He had no interest in the kinds of bargains that the treaty Nez Perce had made, and none of the chiefs who had come to this council had ever made such bargains, nor would they in the future.

Toohoolhoolzote was carrying the day. The other chiefs and warriors were nodding their assent and raising excited murmurs of approval whenever he made a particularly eloquent point in their behalf. The treaty Nez Perce could see that throughout the gathering men were pulling their robes over their shoulders, indicating that the words of Toohoolhoolzote spoke for them.

Joseph and Looking Glass, more than the other assembled chiefs, were wary of the potential for violence. Joseph knew well that only a small spark was needed to set off a massacre that would leave all the white men dead. Though this might bring some satisfaction to the angry and frustrated young warriors, it would eventually result in the annihilation of all the Nez Perce when the full force of the U.S. military was brought against them.

As the atmosphere in the room became ever more tense and agitated, he proposed an adjournment. Howard quickly agreed, even offering to postpone the meeting for the entire weekend, ostensibly to allow people time to reflect and to give the recent arrivals time to rest up from their arduous journey. But in fact, Howard's purpose was to allow the troops he had sent for more time to make their way into nearby positions. His few frightened young men, standing with their rusty rifles just out of sight in the adjacent buildings, did not engender confidence in the face of the growing restiveness and belligerence of the nontreaty warriors.

When the meeting resumed on the following Monday, Toohoolhoolzote picked up where he had left off. Brushing aside Monteith's opening statement about how the Nez Perce would be able to continue their traditional religious practices while living on the reservation, he launched into another impassioned explanation of the sacredness and motherhood of the land. By now more nontreaties had arrived, and his audience was ever more supportive.

After allowing the chief to go on at some length, Howard decided he had heard enough and abruptly informed Toohoolhoolzote that twenty times over he had listened to this talk about the motherhood of the land and the chieftainship of the earth, and it was now time to speak of practical things.

Unaccustomed to being interrupted, and insulted by Howard's arrogant dismissal of his argument, Toohoolhoolzote lashed out at the general. “Who are you to tell me what to do? What person pretends to divide the land and put me on it?”

“I am that man,” Howard answered.

Toohoolhoolzote flew into a dark rage. “I am chief here,” he said. “No man can come and tell me anything I must do. Go back to your own country. Tell them you are chief there. I am chief here.”

The tension in the tent was becoming dangerous. Howard had lost all patience, and Toohoolhoolzote was on the edge of violence.

“My orders are plain and will be executed,” Howard said. “You will go onto the land, or I will send soldiers to put you on it.”

Toohoolhoolzote had reached a point of almost uncontrollable anger. “I am a man,” he said. “I have a prick. You will not tell me what to do.”

Howard's spine stiffened. Toohoolhoolzote not only had demeaned his authority, he had offended his Christian sensibility.

“Take him to the guardhouse,” Howard commanded.

A tall soldier stepped forward and pushed Toohoolhoolzote backward, causing him to fall over some of the other men. Toohoolhoolzote was a man of legendary physical strength—he had been known to return to camp after a hunt carrying a deer on each shoulder. It was all Joseph and the other chiefs could do to keep the meeting from breaking into violence.

Eventually Toohoolhoolzote was convinced to accept the incarceration. The other chiefs knew that numbers were on their side and that it was unlikely Howard would dare inflame the situation further by keeping their chosen speaker imprisoned for long.

But unwittingly, Howard had committed a crime against Indian protocol that was almost more grievous than the insult he had visited upon Toohoolhoolzote. When the chiefs had arrived, they had left their weapons outside the tent, which was the traditional Indian statement that no belligerence would be exhibited during the discussions that took place inside. To violate this rule of decorum by even the slightest mention of violence was to “show the rifle,” and it was among the greatest violations of the universal Indian code of conduct. By threatening to use force to remove the bands from their lands, and by laying hands on Toohoolhoolzote, Howard had “shown the rifle” and established himself as an untrustworthy, dishonorable adversary, worthy from this point forward of neither respect nor consideration.

The council was in shambles. Rumors flew on both sides. The treaty Nez Perce reported that they had heard war songs being sung in the nontreaty camp on previous nights. Joseph had been informed by messenger that while the council was taking place, troops had entered the edge of the Wallowa, where women and children of his band remained at home unprotected. No one knew exactly what was transpiring. But it was clear to the nontreaty chiefs that these white men were a cruel and devious lot, as numerous as locusts and as powerful as grizzlies. The time had come for the chiefs to make a difficult decision.

For the next several days, they listened to the talk of the white men. The young men of Toohoolhoozote's band were prepared to fight and die for the honor of their chief, who remained in the guardhouse. This feeling only increased when Toohoolhoolzote was finally released wearing a fresh white shirt, the symbol of a bride, which none failed to recognize as a pointed indignity visited upon him in response to his comment about his manhood.

White Bird's young men too were ready to fight. Their land had been the most overrun by the miners, who were the worst of the white men— greedy, rapacious, untrustworthy, dissolute. For over a decade they had put up with rapes, murders, thievery, and all manner of indignities. They had seen their mothers and grandmothers shortchanged and cheated in trade by the white shop owners. They had seen acts of unconscionable cruelty and cowardice, as when half-blind Eagle Robe had been shot by a miner after the old man had complained about a fence that the miner had built across his garden.

They had seen the old woman Eye-a-ma-koot hacked to death with a pick by a miner who was upset that their dogs had gotten into a fight. They had seen the white man Harry Mason beat people with a bullwhip if they approached too near his cabin.

They had endured all they could take of their elders fawning before the outrages of the white man. This was not the way their ancestors had behaved; this was not what it meant to be a Nez Perce. They were prepared to fight, and they were prepared to do it now.

But Joseph and White Bird managed to keep the angrier factions in check. They were proud of the fact that their people had never broken the trust made with Lewis and Clark, and they saw clearly the physical numbers of the whites. Honor went only so far. The massacre of women and children and elders, which would surely occur in an all-out war, would violate their sacred trust to protect the people. Killing white men was like trying to remove grains of sand from the shore one by one. Better to acknowledge the reality of the situation and try to make the best of the circumstances.

The young men's anger festered, but reluctantly they agreed. Their hands would be stayed. But if more indignities were visited upon them by this arrogant one-armed general with his talk of Washington and Great Fathers and Jesus, they would bypass the peace-talking chiefs and do what Nez Perce honor required.

Joseph's concern, however, went beyond issues of warfare and honor. In the course of the council, Howard had announced that the bands would have thirty days in which to gather their belongings and report to the reservation. Such a demand was as heartless as it was impossible. The band's horses and cattle were still wandering the hills and valleys of their winter pasturage, and the trails were still covered with snow.